Texas prisons are too hot

Texas prides itself for being tough on crime. Many think that imprisoned inmates should be punished, rather than rehabilitated. But there's such a thing as "cruel and unusual" punishment, which framers of the Constitution prohibited in the Eighth Amendment.

Does being locked in a prison cell, during a Texas summer, that is not only unair-conditioned but unventilated, and in which heat indexes can reach 130-plus degrees, constitute cruel and unusual punishment? The Texas Civil Rights Project thinks so, and is suing the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on behalf of several inmates, including some who died in last year's heat wave.

Ten prisoners died during a 26-day stretch last summer, and, according to Scott Medlock, director of the TCRP's Prisoners' Rights Program, an unconfirmed number have died this year.

Medlock's suit on behalf of former inmate Eugene Blackmon was thrown out in lower court but recently reinstated by the Fifth Circuit Court. In it Blackmon alleges that the heat inside his Garza East prison dormitory in Beeville caused him to suffer from headaches, nausea and blurred vision. Prison officials have refuted Blackmon's claims, saying that they took adequate precautions, including access to ice water and extra showers.

Medlock is also suing the state for wrongful death in the case of Larry Gene McCollum. Like other inmates who died, McCollum was a likely candidate for heat related tragedy, as he was morbidly obese and subject to high blood pressure.

Medlock says that his group is not necessarily calling for the state to air-condition all of its prisons, but that state prisons should at least offer some air-conditioned relief areas during heat waves, and that the most vulnerable prisoners, like McCollum, could be transferred to air-conditioned units (21 out of 111 state prisons are air conditioned) or to older units that have better ventilation.

"The state is inviting the federal courts to intervene in our prison system," Medlock warns. "To avoid a protracted bout of federal court supervision, they'd better get on the ball. Do the right thing and the smart thing."

We agree. If it's illegal in Texas to expose a pet to deadly conditions, then we shouldn't be able to do so to prisoners either, no matter how tough on crime we are.